FAILURE TO COMPLY ┃ f. odair

3.12 know the enemy, know yourself

With Peeta settled enough that they could be sure he wouldn't try anything, Finnick left him with Monica and sped across the room to where Calypso had situated herself in a shadowy corner. She was ok, she was alive. That was all she had said. He was very aware that she hadn't been with them for a good few minutes, considering the fact Monica was forced to drag her back across the courtyard and into their new shelter. He knew she wasn't right from the minute that gunfire had first gone off. But they'd had far too much to contend with. There was nothing more he could have done for her.

At the very least, she was here. She was back to being aware and back to pouting about it with a classic hollow look in her eyes. It was painful to see, but it was a version of Calypso he was familiar with. While her attention was elsewhere - on Gale, evidently - he picked up her hand and sighed with relief at the way her fingers automatically curled around his.

"Are you ok?" he asked her in a whisper. She gave a small shake of her head. Her eyes did not leave Gale, and the man had definitely noticed.

"What?" he questioned. Calypso did not speak. "You're staring. What?"

"I thought you would've just left me to die," she said. Some part of her wanted him too. Some part of her wanted to swallow the nightlock pill before she caused the world any more damage. "You could have."

"We're still fighting the same war," he said indifferently. "We're on the same side. I may not like you, but I can put up with you for the sake of the mission."

It was a better answer than she could have hope for. Calypso went to say more, to try and finally explain herself to him... But then, more gunfire came, more explosions. Her hand tightened around Finnick's and she shrunk further into the shadows. The sound of shattering glass, a whole building crumbling. It was only now she realised the Leegs were not here. Boggs. Mitchell. They were all gone.

When the noise died down, all that remained was Calypso's shuddering breaths. She was crying, body trembling and eyes shining with tears as she looked up at Gale again. Her heart was stuck somewhere between crippling remorse and unjustified anger.

"It wasn't me that killed him," she said, thinking back to that soldier who'd come for her with Monica and Gale. "It was me, but it wasn't me."

"His name was Knox," he said, same emotionless tone in his voice. But his eyebrows were furrowed either with concern, frustration or sympathy. Probably not the latter. "Just so you know."

"I'm sorry," she sniffled. "I want to do better. Snow made me a monster and that's not who I want to be."

Gale regarded her for a moment, how she fought so hard to keep those tears in but failed terribly. He watched the way Finnick kept rubbing his thumb over the back of her hand like she needed the constant comfort, like she was deserving of it. He saw her, then, not as a killer, but as a destroyed woman. Snow's plaything. She was surely broken beyond repair. But was that really her fault?

"You're still carrying that rage," he commented. "You're letting him do that to you."

Calypso furrowed her brows. She could not deny the statement. She was angry, and she could not let it go until she saw Snow die by her hand. But that did not mean she was still in his clutches, that she was letting him do anything. And was that not the reason they were all there. For anger? For revenge? For justice?

"So are you," Calypso retorted, gaining back some of her fire at the comment. She let the tears fall naturally, illuminating her now burning gaze. "At least this time it's not a blinding rage. I know who my enemy is. Do you?"

Gale opened his mouth and closed it again. His enemy was Snow. His enemy was the Capitol. But Calypso's intentions with her question were clear to him. His enemy was Peeta. His enemy was her.